Love and Pain
by Firecracker-SJ
Summary: Katherine's thoughts about her past and all the times she has loved and lost ... She is much more complicated then people give her credit for. They think she only cares about herself, that her only goal is survival ... One-shot, minor warnings inside.


**AN: **I really like Katherine, she is a compelling and complicated character and fierce as hell, so I really enjoyed trying to delve into what made her the woman she is today. I mean, when you think about it, she has had a very tragic live to equal even Elena's, but she has kept surviving. That takes a lot of strength.

So these are Katherine's thoughts about her past (her child, her banishment, Trevor, Klaus, Elijah and Stefan) and about the nature of love and how she dealt with it. This is a One-Shot.

**Spoilers:** up and including episode 2x19 Klaus. **Warnings:** Discussion of having a baby taken away, some suicidal thoughts.

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><p><strong>Love and Pain.<strong>

There are many secrets Katherine keeps locked away in a heart people think she does not have. Some to keep herself safe, others to keep herself sane.

She is much more complicated then people give her credit for. They think she only cares about herself, that her only goal is survival. The truth, just as she, is far more complicated then that: she has a heart, she has feelings and worst of all she has loved. Truly, deeply. And every single time love has slipped away from her grasp and in it's retreat has dealt her a painful blow.

Love and pain. They seem to go hand in hand to her, one the logical conclusion to the other. Love has always hurt her more then any other thing upon this earth.

She had loved the boy in her village, with his golden hair en sweet honey words. She had loved him carelessly and had given herself to him completely, mind, body and soul. She had been stupid then, of course. An ignorant little girl who still believed in fairy tales, who still believed in a Love that did not wound. When the fruit of their actions took hold in her womb the coward fled the village, without so much as a word, leaving her to face the shame and judgment of her family all alone. He had never loved her after all, she came to realize and later she cursed him, but more so she cursed herself, for it was her love that had cost her the love of her family.

That hadn't destroyed her though. She had been young then, yes, young and naive, romantic, stupid, ignorant and gullible. All those things she mocked Elena for, she had been as well. But she had also been strong, even then and she survived. She had picked up the pieces of her heart and mended it, a little strong this time, a little more guarded.

But then she gave birth to her girl, her beautiful baby girl. Love had come hand in hand with pain then, but it had been the sweetest pain that had only strengthened her love when she gazed upon her child's face. And the promise she had made herself, that she would never again love so easily, was broken instantaneously. In those few moments she loved the child more fiercely then she had ever done the father. In those moments she was whole again.

But she never got to hold her, to kiss her, to see her again. They took her from her and she had gone mad. She had wept and screamed and begged. She had threatened, prayed, bargained and when she could no more, when no more tears would spill from her eyes, when her throat was too raw to speak, they send her away.

This, this had destroyed her. It had shattered her heart into a million pieces, each of of them piercing her chest until she could breath no more. And yet ... she survived. Her heart did not kill her, the pain lessened, her sorrow waned. She mended herself again, built herself an armor. The pain she had felt, her heartbreak, all that she forged into a sword to keep herself safe. She swore: Love would never hurt her again.

And it worked, for a while. England became her home and she banished all thoughts of the one she had had before it. She met Trevor, poor wide-eyed Trevor and she knew he loved her and she encouraged it, because it felt good to receive love instead of always being the one to give it. She did not fear him, for she knew she could not love him. But this boy, from whom she feared no hurt, delivered her to those who could.

Klaus and Elijah.

For that, she thought, he deserved his fate. To run as she had. To die at the hands of the man to whom he had delivered her, while he delivered another doppelgänger, no less. She had laughed at that, a cruel little joke only she appreciated. But ... a tiny bit of her mourned that stupid boy. He had loved her and she had used him to help her escape. Love had been his downfall in the end, it had hurt him as it had hurt her and for that reason alone, she could not help but feel sorry.

Klaus was different. She had never loved him and he never her, she knew that even back then. There was not a thing in the world that he could do that would make her feel anything but hate. If there was one person who she hated completely, truly, deeply, then it was him. When the day would finally come where he would die she would cry, yes, but they would be tears of joy and should the opportunity present itself, she would dance upon his grave.

Klaus had hurt her, gave her wounds that still festered after all this time, but Love had not been the weapon he used. He had never so much as scratched her armor.

But Elijah had.

Sometimes she told herself that it wasn't true. That she hated him as much as she hated Klaus. Had he not planned to slaughter her as his brother had? He had deceived her the same, seen her as nothing more then a sacrificial lamb. A girl with another's face. He sure as hell had hunted her as relentlessly as his brother had and in the end, she fear him more then she did Klaus.

But, if the day would come that he would die, she would not rejoice, nor cheer. She'd be relieved, yes, one of her fiercest enemies gone, but part of her would feel sorrow, part of her would weep. Because that part of her, tiny, secret, hidden, locked inside her armor, would remember.

Summer days when they would talk, back when she was still ignorant of the fate that loomed over her. Days when they played stupid games, only since he humored her just because he thought she was lonely. Or when they would go riding and they would laugh as they raced across meadows, neither of them wanting to let the other one win. She'd remember how he tore her armor away piece by piece, without even knowing it himself, until he exposed her raw naked heart.

She could have loved him. That was the worst of it. She could have loved him and be happy and he could have healed her heart for good.

But that illusion had shattered along with her heart as Trevor told her the truth.

She had come to expect it by then. The pain was less then it would have been and she didn't cry a single tear. She ran instead, to Rose's hurt where she rebuild her armor and made herself so much stronger then before. She replaced her sword with fangs. And she ran again. She ran and ran and ran and most importantly she survived.

She loved again and sometimes when she looked at Stefan, she saw all the men that came before him. So she was careful and she did not let herself get hurt again. Not yet, at least she thought, though perhaps one day Stefan would deal his blow. In a way it was inevitable.

And there lies the deepest, darkest secret of them all.

Because sometimes, despite all those years of running and surviving, despite everything she has done to stay alive, she wishes one of them would catch her. Elijah or Stefan, it made no difference. One of them would tear her heart out from her chest and they would see the scars that ran across it and maybe, just for one moment, one small significant moment, they would understand.


End file.
